


Keeping Cool

by TheSpaceCoyote



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Fluff, M/M, carlos finds a way to beat the desert heat, moving tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2013-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-25 07:13:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/950206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil's tattoos have a surprising, yet soothing side effect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping Cool

**Author's Note:**

> Incredibly quick drabble I wrote on the Tumblr. Sorry for clogging the tag so much lately!
> 
> Speaking of Tumblr, if you want to see more raving about Night Vale and other such things, feel free to follow me at: thethespacecoyote.tumblr.com

Carlos had never been exactly a stranger to the heat. But he was more familiar with the thicker, more humid coastal heat rather than the bone-dry hellfire that seemed to bake the moisture directly out of the earth and the bodies of every last being caught in its devilish breath. 

He was used to the heat; but desert heat,  _Night Vale_ heat, was a completely different animal. Sometimes literally, if the white hot, four-legged balls of energy that chittered at him and Cecil on the side of the road were any indication. 

The same Cecil who wasn’t helping the heat with the way he consistently tried to touch and melt and wrap himself around Carlos every moment the two of them were together. Carlos didn’t mind sharing a bed with Cecil, but with the way the other man was constantly pressed up to and around him it was as if he’d never kicked the blankets and sheets off of the bed at all. Being with Cecil was like being in an oven full of warm skin and blood and a half dozen appendages, and sometimes that was nice. But not when Carlos’ bones were almost ready to reach their latent heat and melt out of his body. 

Carlos was about ready to slip out of Cecil’s arms and get up, maybe dunk his head in the sink a couple of times, when suddenly something cool prickles along his chest, the sudden change in temperature causing him to start. He looked down at his chest, eyebrows raised. 

The deep-plum swirls and lines of Cecil’s tattoos, those long tendrils that curls and undulated around his body as if they had a mind of their own, had shifted. But not simply onto another part of Cecil’s body, no. They had migrated, moving from their usual home on Cecil’s hand and forearm, to spill over onto Carlos’ chest from where Cecil’s fingertips brushed against his sternum. 

And they were  _cool_. Not cold. But cool enough to send shivers of relief through his entire body. They rippled over his ribs, his belly, his shoulders, every patch of available skin, concentrating in those areas that were particularly sweating and stifled. Carlos had felt Cecil’s inked skin many times before, but he’d never seen them exhibit this quality. Cecil could isolate them and control their surface temperature. It was fascinating. 

Most of all, it was so,  _so_  soothing. 

"That better?" Cecil whispered into his ear. Carlos hadn’t even been aware that the man was awake, but he appreciated the new additions to his body and their effects  _very_  much. He hummed.

"Very."


End file.
